4 easy Thanksgiving social media tips for churches

Thanksgiving social media posts can easily get lost in the flurry of advertisements around Black Friday and early Christmas. How can a church’s social media break through?

Try this: Create Thanksgiving social media posts that speak directly to your followers. But how do you know what they’re thinking or wanting? Can you know what your community is thankful for? Yes, you can!

Here are 4 easy social media tips any church can use to create shareable posts that speak to the needs and desires of your community.

1. Find out what your community is thinking. Go to google.com and search for “I’m thankful for … ” or “I’m grateful for … ” then stop before you hit return. Google will complete your sentence in a dropdown list of things in your community people have said they’re thankful for. It’s what they’re typing into Google. And Google gladly shares this information with you, so use it. You may be surprised at some of the searches.
2. Choose from the list. Go through the Google list and pull ideas that fit your church’s message. You may have to hit return and go to the search results page to finish, but use those near the top of any listing. And use the wording Google suggests.
3. Create a campaign. Make a simple graphic using a design program like Canva. Keep it very simple, with few words, but use your church’s fonts and colors, maybe a small logo in the corner. A good size to use for both Facebook and Instagram images is 1200 x 1200 pixels. Then use the same design for other graphics, but change the words. Decide how many you need (One per week for 4 weeks? One per day during Thanksgiving week?) and create them all at the same time. Ensure they are from the same “design family.” Then write a simple post that expands on the message of the graphic (like, “I’m grateful for my family.”) and maybe ask a question (“What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?”). Decide when to post and schedule the posts ahead of time.
4. Include a call to action. Be sure to add a web link on each post to motivate someone to a next step, such as watching a Thanksgiving video about what church members are thankful for, listening to a sermon about gratitude or attending a special Thanksgiving service. Keep the “ask” to a minimum and remove as many barriers as possible — make it easy for visitors to your page to act in response.

Remember, great social media connects to your website, so make sure your site is ready to lead people to visiting your church or watching a service online. The more you create a similarity between your Thanksgiving social media posts (colors, fonts, logo, message) and the web page you lead them to, the more it will connect people to your church. They liked your post so much they clicked on a link, now connect them to your church.

Note from Mark: I’m thankful for all you who create and maintain social media for your church. No one fully understands how difficult that can be, especially during the holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving!

EDITOR’S NOTE — Mark MacDonald is communication pastor, speaker, consultant, bestselling author, church branding strategist for BeKnownforSomething.com and executive director of the Center for Church Communication, empowering 10,000-plus churches to become known for something relevant (a communication thread) throughout their ministries, websites and social media. His book, “Be Known for Something,” is available at BeKnownBook.com.